During a rare quiet moment this past week, Jim Fassel said he stole five minutes for himself, closed the door behind him in his office and devised the bare bones of his gameplan.

“I wrote down the plays that I liked in the order I liked them,” Fassel said.

Viola! Just like that, the Giants awakened from their offensive slumber just in time. Perhaps Fassel’s bold move will be the catalyst that shakes his team out of its grogginess.

There sure looked to be a breakthrough last night, as Fassel, and not offensive coordinator Sean Payton, barked the plays into the headset of Kerry Collins and suddenly the Giants marched into the end zone as if they had been there before. Getting nearly half as many touchdowns (three) in one game than they managed in the previous seven games (seven). The Giants ended their two-game losing streak with a 24-17 victory over the Jaguars at Giants Stadium. The Giants led 24-3 in the fourth quarter and controlled the action from start to finish.

At 4-4, the Giants moved into a second-place tie with the Redskins in the NFC East. The Jaguars (3-5) lost their fourth consecutive game.

“I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” Fassel said. “I wanted to play quick and make the players be decisive.”

Did Fassel’s play-calling make a difference? Payton had called the plays since late in the 1999 season but Fassel soured on his work as the Giants labored to 89 points in their first seven games, fewer than every team but the Bengals. For the record, Fassel’s first call was a pass that Amani Toomer caught for 11 yards. Soon enough, certain changes became evident. There was virtually no pre-snap shifting, as Fassel sought to simplify the operation. There was also a heavy reliance on Tiki Barber, which Fassel always advocates.

Barber touched the ball five times in the first seven plays, finishing the job with a 2-yard touchdown run on a misdirection cut barely three minutes into the game. Barber (19-101) broke the 100-yard barrier for the first time this season and in the third quarter scored a second touchdown on a brilliant 44-yard scamper. Barber gave the Giants a scare when he believed he injured his left ankle late in the game but X-rays were negative.

Another noticeable change was the way Fassel used his personnel. He did not shuttle players in and out. Ron Dayne, a virtual non-entity in Payton’s offense, played the majority of the second quarter. The increased work allowed Dayne (13-52) to be more effective and on one series of plays, Fassel told Collins that if he got a certain defensive look from Jacksonville to call the exact same play – a Dayne run – three straight times.

“We don’t usually do that,” Toomer said.

“Two schools of thought,” added Collins, carefully avoiding any criticism of Payton. “What we did tonight worked for us.”

Collins (20-of-28, 228 yards and 1 TD) was sharp, especially in the first half when the Giants took a 14-0 lead that should have been larger, but rookie Matt Bryant missed two field goals. The Giants owned the time of possession in the first half (22 minutes to eight minutes) and their 21 first downs matched their season high for an entire game. The Giants scored on their opening drive, helped by a fumble by Mark Brunell that was recovered by Kenny Holmes, the first time in four games that the Giants defense forced a turnover.

Nine seconds before halftime, Collins lofted a pass into the right side of the end zone, where Ron Dixon – making his first career start in place of Ike Hilliard, who is out for the season – out-leaped cornerback Fernando Bryant and hauled in a pass that was ruled out of bounds. Dixon, though, came down with his left foot and looked to drag his right one in the end zone, prompting a replay challenge. Official word came down from umpire Johnny Grier: Touchdown. The TD was set up by a 27-yard pass to rookie Tim Carter on fourth-and-17.